Presidential Tribunal: Peter Obi asking for non-existent documents against the president – INEC

During the sitting of the Presidential Election Tribunal in Abuja on Tuesday, it was revealed by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) that some of the documents requested by Mr. Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 election, to be presented as exhibits were non-existent.

Obi and the Labour Party filed a petition marked CA/PEPC/03/2023 challenging the election of President Bola Tinubu on February 25. The respondents in the petition include INEC, President Tinubu, Vice-President Kashim Shettima, and their party, the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Mr. Lawrence Bayode, the Deputy Director of ICT at INEC, testified in court, stating that out of the five documents requested by Obi, two were non-existent, and one was still in progress.

One of Obi’s witnesses, Ms. Loretta Ogah, an ICT cloud engineer who contested the House of Representatives election on the Labour Party platform in Cross River State but lost, was cross-examined by Mr. Wole Olanipakun (SAN), the counsel for Tinubu and Shettima. Ogah explained that she filed a lawsuit against INEC due to the network failure that resulted in her name not being listed on the INEC portal.

During further cross-examination by Mr. Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), counsel for the APC, Ogah stated that there were no glitches on the INEC portal on February 25 and that she was not familiar with INEC’s password protocol as she was not an employee of the organization.

The court presided over by Justice Haruna Tsammani, adjourned further hearing to Wednesday.